Circa 671 - 715
Umayyad Khalifah

Muslim Expansion. Son of the Umayyad khalifah Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (circa 647 - 705), al-Walid had a brief but remarkable ten-year reign (705-715). In some sense it represents the high point of the Umayyad khilafah, for it never again attained the level of success that it had under al-Walid. He ruled during the second wave of Muslim expansion. Under him Muslims achieved the final elimination of the Byzantines from North Africa and the pacification of the Berbers there, as well as the conquest of the Visigoth kingdom of Spain, many small Iranian states between the Oxus and the Jaxartes, and the substantial Brahmin kingdom of Sind in present-day Pakistan.

Patron of the Arts. These territorial acquisitions brought a huge new tax income into the coffers of the Muslim state, enabling al-Walid to engage in public works and other projects on a...